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I wonder how good a player Kenny Hubbs would have been. His records show him as a weak hitter, even for 1963 when things were starting to turn against hitters and .235 wasn't that ghastly a batting average. (The whole NL hit just .245 that year.) But Hubbs was just 22 when he died, and had a lot of room to improve on all fronts.

From 1954 to 1966, playing for the Cardinals, Senators, and White Sox, Cunningham hit .291/.403/.417. His peak--from 1957 to 1959 for the Cardinals--he hit .328/.448/.484.

He never played in an All-Star game, and in November of 1961--following a year in which Cunningham hit .286/.403/.398 for the Cardinals (in limited time, even though he led the team in OBP)--he was traded to the White Sox straight-up for Minnie Minoso (who was toast). His first year in Chicago, he hit .295/.410/.428 and received a few MVP votes.

He was still just 30, but that was the end of his run as a dominant player. He'd play 250 games over the next four years (for Chicago and Washington), and, despite a .367 OBP, could only manage a 97 OPS+ as his power had completely dissipated.

Still though... He can always be the answer to the trivia question "Which St. Louis Cardinal outfielder led the team in OBP from 1957-1961?" Stan Musial, eat your heart out!

Cunningham is just a name to me; he'd retired by the time I was old enough to follow baseball. Various Internet sources say that he fractured his collarbone colliding with an Angels infielder named Charlie Dees mid-season 1963. Seems like everything conspired to kick the skids out from under his career at that point: he was in his early 30s, things were getting a lot tougher for hitters, and he was seriously injured.

He looks from B-Ref like an early version of Mike Hargrove or Dave Magadan, an extremely useful ballplayer. They might have been somewhat better fielders, though.

Of the 10 home runs Morel hit in 2011, eight came in the final month of the season. Through August 31, his career HR/FB rate stood at just 4.9 percent; in 103 September plate appearances, that ballooned to 29.6 percent. Not to mention he slugged .553 with a .329 ISO and an are-you-kidding-me 1.474 Power Factor.

There's a big sample size caveat here and I'm not suggesting that Morel's gaudy September numbers are completely indicative of a new true talent level. But a late-season swing (pun intended) as dramatic as his shouldn't necessarily be dismissed as a fluky hot streak, especially since some of his other numbers changed towards the end of the year too. It's important to remember the huge role of luck in baseball and the dangers of reading too much into small sample sizes, but surely that Zobrist, Bautista, and Morse all broke out after huge Septembers has to mean something.

Some head scratchers, kinda, from the Giants this offseason, giving Erik Cordier a major-league contract, claiming Jose de Paula on waivers when it's going to (eventually) cost Surkamp. And, of course, their reticence to cut bait on Angel Villalona.